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CNN Saturday Morning News

Storm Tears Through St. Louis, Devastates Neighborhoods, Homes and Lambert Airport

Aired April 23, 2011 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN, ANCHOR: Good morning, folks. We're at the top of the hour here on the CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

T. J. Holmes here with you from Atlanta, Georgia. But St. Louis is our focus this morning. St. Louis is where they just had a devastating series of severe storms last night, suspected tornadoes. Some 24 reports of tornadoes throughout the region.

But some of the pictures you are seeing or some of the pictures we have been getting, since daylight broke there in St. Louis. Neighborhoods devastated. Homes, gone. And we are seeing just the heart wrenching pictures of people walking through rubble that used to be their homes. We have seen people trying to collect whatever they can this morning. But this is the process that is just getting started. This is a new reality for them this morning that they are just starting to understand the scope of.

Now the other part of the story there in St. Louis, as we go full to this live picture here, one home that is still standing, this is one of the few we have seen in some of these neighborhoods and pictures, but you see some homes like this, they're standing right next door or across the street or a street over might be a home that is just gone.

Now the other part of this story we can tell you is that the St. Louis International Airport, Lambert International Airport, that is where the roof is off parts of one of the terminals there. Where just about all of the glass, at least half of it we're told, is blown out of one of the concourses there. This is where several hundred people to a thousand people were collected last night trying to fly out. Well that airport is shut down right now, closed indefinitely.

We have no idea and the public information officer told me a short time ago, they have no idea when planes might be able to land in St. Louis at that airport again or take off there again. They have been running on backup power, an emergency generator, so power is not even up. A key part to this story, and right frankly an amazing part of this story after we see some of this damage, is that there are no serious injuries right now to report to you and no deaths to report.

A few people from the airport, we were told five, had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries and a few people treated on the scene. But so far the human toll at least, has been low. The toll to - the physical toll here, is just something else altogether. I want you to listen quickly to some of the people who were there at the airport last night.

Of course there were some who were collected on planes trying to take off, but then there were others who were there in their cars trying to pick up people from the airport. Take a quick listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sky went totally black, the wind picked the car up, maybe an inch or two, dropped it and blew out the windows. It happened real fast. Piece of plastic came in and hit her. I threw the phone and grabbed her out of the car seat and put her in my lap in the front seat and just bent over and held on to her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sirens started going off. And so we hurried in. And almost instantaneously all the windows started blowing out like at one time. Next thing we know, we heard crashes and all the poles were falling and then they told us to go down to a bunker underneath the airport and the lights were going out and they turned the generator on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right. As we continue to look at these live pictures, we know there is going to be a need there in St. Louis. Folks are going to be calling family and friends, needing places to stay, quite frankly. The Red Cross, as we know, always jumps in and is at the ready when this - when devastation happens across this country and once again, the Red Cross has been called on there.

Jessica Willingham is with the Red Cross in St. Louis, in St. Louis County, in particular.

Ma'am, we appreciate you hopping on the line and giving us an update. But ma'am, just how great will the need be? Do you have any idea just yet?

JESSICA WILLINGHAM, RED CROSS (via telephone): Yes. Thanks so much for, you know, listening to everything that's going on and for helping the whole country come together to help St. Louis. The devastation is pretty bad. Red Cross workers have been working since the storm hit last night all the way through the night and continue to work today. We've opened shelter to house people. We've also been doing damage assessments on homes.

But it's going to, you know, we've helped many people so far, but as the day goes on, we will help many, many more because as the light has come up, people did not realize the extent of the damage.

HOLMES: And Jessica, we're still trying to get a handle on that, just the extent of the damage, but have you gotten a decent handle yet on how widespread, from what we're hearing, it wasn't a wide area necessarily, but the areas it hit certainly was devastating. Can you give us an idea?

WILLINGHAM: Sure. It's the north county area of St. Louis that was hardest hit, which includes the towns of Bridgeton, Berkeley, Dellwin (ph) and Maryland Heights. And as you were describing earlier, the weather and the hopping of the tornado systems is - is always going to happen, so some areas are absolutely devastated and some it's just plucked one home out of many.

So it's devastating. The Red Cross is at work. We're helping as many people as we can. We've been providing safe place for people to stay through the night, food, emergency supplies, and now we're going out into communities with damage assessment teams and case workers to actually look at the damage, see what's happened, distribute shovels, rakes, tarps, to do mobile feeding of people, and then also to help them to take the next steps in their recovery.

HOLMES: All right. And ma'am you mentioned you were helping people and had people in your shelters last night. For folks who may need some help this morning, how many of those shelters, how can they find out about those shelters and one other thing, you mentioned you had people, any idea how many you actually did have in some of your shelters last night?

WILLINGHAM: We had lots of people in the shelter last night. It's only one at our Maryland Heights Community Center. However as more needs are coming about in the daylight today, then we are opening shelters as needed. So we've got 600 volunteers already trained that are out there helping and on call and we'll open as many shelters as needed in cooperation with emergency management.

The whole goal is to keep people safe. If they don't have a place to stay they need to call the Red Cross at 1-800-RedCross. And if people need to get help or give help, that's the number, 1-800- RedCross. As you know, the Red Cross is a charity so we're able to do as much work as the good people of this country allow us to do through their donations.

HOLMES: OK. Again, 1-800-RedCross and people will be able to make a contribution or they will be able to find out information about shelters and what not and help they can get specifically in the St. Louis area?

WILLINGHAM: That's correct.

HOLMES: OK. Well, all right. 1-800-RedCross. I will make sure I get that out to our folks. We will make sure to keep that up. Because they will need some help there. And like you said, Jessica, we are just starting to get a good grip on exactly what happened in St. Louis last night. Ma'am, thank you so much for hopping on the line. We'll probably be in touch with you a little later. Thanks so much.

WILLINGHAM: Absolutely.

HOLMES: As I bring in our Karen Maginnis, our meteorologist, back in, I was looking at this picture, I'm looking at it and I'm thinking to myself, "oh, lord. It's raining there too this morning?

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's heartbreaking when you're trying to salvage what little bit is left after your home has been blown apart, it is devastating. I don't know if we can take KPLR or KTVI, but we're looking at an American Airlines aircraft that is sitting at a gate.

And the reason that we're looking at it is because there was debris, the roof of the concourse that this plane was sitting at, was blown around and they're checking the intake portion of the engines to see if there's any debris in there.

They have to look at the fuselage to see if it's been - any kind of way compromised from the debris that was blown around. Or just compromised from the plane itself being rustled about as people were sitting on the aircraft trying to take off.

There you can see the tail of this aircraft and they're going around looking at each of these. The Lambert-St. Louis International Airport as we've mentioned over and over, is closed. The last time it was closed was during a blizzard in 1982. Now the neighborhood that we saw from our other affiliate, KSDK, showed a neighborhood right in the vicinity of the airport in the northern portion of St. Louis County.

We saw one street, one neighborhood, it looked as if every home had - from a little damage to a whole lot of damage and one home looked to be standing still. Want to mention one other thing from this airport. We saw information that the chief of police of St. Louis county, was taking a look at the airport. People were at the windows at the airport looking at the severe weather come in. He decided they needed to go in and take shelter. They went in. Went into a rest room. And he said, that is when for about the next 10 seconds, it was deafening in there, but it lasted just a few seconds.

It's amazing, T.J., when you look at all the damage that we're seeing from our CNN affiliates in St. Louis, just how extensive this is. And as we've mentioned before, the National Weather Service is sending out their survey crews in this - what is now still miserable weather, and they're going to assess just by looking at the damage here, just how strong these tornadoes were. It's pretty obvious these were tornadoes. They had super cell tornadic cells reported across this region. They'll say it's an EF-2 or EF-3. The higher the number the more intense the damage, the higher the winds.

HOLMES: OK. Let me ask you as well, because we just had your radar up a second ago. And of course, I'm not skilled at reading it. We have you here but there seems to be a nasty line of something. I see the rain. But is it possible they are going to get more severe weather?

MAGINNIS: It does look like there is some rain moving in across that region and to answer your question, the storm prediction center has issued a slight thunderstorm risk for this area across the lower Ohio River Valley, back across the ArkLaTex region. I think St. Louis could see a thundershower, but it looks like the severe weather risk is a little bit further to the south of the St. Louis region.

But you can't rule out any more in the way of wet weather. It does look like the pattern is still very saturated across this region. And T.J., that's going to be the other big story, besides the outbreak of severe weather, is this is going to be a region over the next five to seven days that could see severe flooding.

They might expect as much as 10 inches of rainfall. But here we're looking once again, KPLR, they're taking a look at the airport. This is St. Louis County. The airport closed right now. A number of airplanes still sitting at their gate but they have to be inspected because you don't want anything to compromise those aircraft.

HOLMES: Yes and a lot of people will remember this is just a couple of weeks ago, we were right here, reporting to you about a plane out in Arizona, that the three to five-foot hole that opened up while people who were in mid-flight found out later that the skin of the plane had been compromised in some way and that was the reason.

So you do not want to put a plane in the air if it's been compromised in any way. And the way things were thrown around in St. Louis last night, the power of the winds, we suspect, it could have damaged these planes. So that could delay a lot of folks in St. Louis.

Again, a lot of people need to know, even though you might not be flying to St. Louis or from St. Louis or might not think this might affect you, but you have hubs there, we got, I believe, remind me with - American Airlines, AirTran, Southwest, several flights through here so that could cause disruptions for those airlines.

So if you're flying anywhere in the region, this could have some kind of an effect on you. So you need to check with your airlines if you're flying. But right now closed indefinitely. No idea when this might be opened up.

We'll hear more and should learn more here in the next - within two hours, about an hour and 45 minutes from now. We're expecting a news conference from the airport. 11:00 a.m. Eastern time is when that's supposed to happen. We will bring that to you live when it does happen, an update from the airport where we're also expecting plenty of updates from the surrounding areas.

But St. Louis, devastated last night, and you know what, just at the breadth of this disaster is just starting to come to life for us this morning. It is about 14 minutes past the hour on this CNN SATURDAY MORNING. We are going to take just a couple-minute break here and be back with you for the very latest on a very busy news morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: We are at 16 minutes past the hour now, folks. Welcome back to this CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

A busy news morning it has been, particularly that we are keeping our eyes on what's happening in St. Louis right now where we are just starting to understand the night they had and the devastation there. Severe storms moved through the area last night, destroyed some homes, some neighborhoods, certainly devastated, but also, the airport having some issues as well.

Take a look at that, folks. This is what daylight is showing us. These storms went through around 8:00 last night or so, but again, it was dark last night. We saw some of the nighttime pictures but now, now as the sun started to come up or at least daylight started to hit and our affiliates are helping us with the helicopters above, taking these pictures, but giving us an idea here, this is all pretty much north, northwest of downtown St. Louis is where we're seeing most of this damage.

Now, north-northwest of St. Louis, you'll find the town of Bridgeton. You'll find other smaller communities and suburbs of St. Louis, but you'll also find the airport, the Lambert International Airport, which was hit pretty hard last night and is now shutdown. It is closed indefinitely with no word on when possibly it could open up again. They are running on back-up generators, at least that was the word I got a little over an hour ago from one of their public information officers who was here with me.

Also, we have been talking to some of our local affiliates who have been covering this since late last night when this happened. I talked to one news director who said, hey, this is one time when all the meteorologists got it right, they knew what was coming and we were able to get the information out to people. They were able to seek shelter.

And that's why this morning, folks, we can tell you that as of right now, there are no reports of any serious injuries that we have gotten. Hopefully that will stay the same. Also no reports of deaths either.

Certainly hoping that news will stay the same as we look at these pictures. I want to turn to one of our affiliates right now, Courtney Gousman is with KSDK, a reporter there in St. Louis.

Courtney, are you with me now? I can't see you just yet. But Courtney, are you with me?

COURTNEY GOUSMAN, KSDK REPORTER: Yes, T.J., can you see me?

HOLMES: Hey there, Courtney. That's all right. I can hear you. That's good enough. We can keep some of these pictures up.

But please tell me, Courtney, where you are and give us an idea - it looks like you are at the airport and that's where we understand it is a mess this morning?

GOUSMAN: Yes, it is. And I can tell you, it T.J., it was a wild ride last night. Around 8:15 is when what's believed to have been a tornado actually swept through the area and, you know, so many people were affected. We're talking about passengers and visitors here to the airport.

It was a very scary scene as passengers and visitors described they had literally seconds just to get to safety. Blew out a number of windows. And what we've been seeing today with daylight, not only are they cleaning, they're attempting to board up windows that were left open by this storm from last night.

Now some passengers actually tell me they were on planes, they were in terminals, one passenger even tells me his actual plane moved 15 to 20 feet while sitting on the runway and the end result are these windows that you're seeing right now, actually blown out. This is terminal one.

This is the main terminal here at Lambert Airport. Concourse C which was primarily serves as the American Airlines concourse, it took a brunt of the damage. And check it out there's water damage from the rain that's because the ceiling part of the roof was actually ripped off.

You can even see damage on the runways, overturned baggage carts and glass everywhere. Now right now, as you mentioned, Lambert-St. Louis is closed indefinitely. We've been talking to airport officials who tell us they are just working at this point to assess the damage and actually check the sturdiness of these buildings because the last thing they want to do is get everything up and running and then something collapse, so that's been the focus today.

They're going to be assessing the damage, kind of going through. Right now we have no damage totals, but we do expect to have a news conference here at 10:00 local time, hearing from city and county officials to tell us what's next. Closed indefinitely, no planes coming in or out -- T.J.

HOLMES: Courtney, can you tell me one other thing? There were a number of people, the public information officer said, several hundred to maybe over a thousand or so in the airport last night when this was taking place. Where did all or where are those people right now? I assume they tried to get everyone evacuated because they didn't know how sturdy the airport was, but where is everybody as far as passengers right now? Hotels, where are they?

GOUSMAN: Yes. You got it. Exactly right. I can tell you last night when we were briefed, we were told approximately 500, they believe, people here at the airport at the time when this tornado actually breezed through, and right now, everyone's gone. It's like a ghost town here. But most people were taking shuttles to airports. People that had local ties were staying over with relatives or just plain old going home, canceling their trips. It's been a lot of that. A lot of things are up in the air.

I know a number of airlines did put up passengers in airports - I mean hotels, I should say, until further notice, trying to get them out and some people are even telling me that they're planning to take detours to other airports like Kansas City or in the nearby area so they can actually get out and still take their trips.

HOLMES: Courtney, we appreciate the update. Like you described, a ghost town at the airport, what is normally a busy airport. Courtney, we appreciate you this morning. Thanks so much. Again to our viewers, 21 minutes past the hour right now, keeping a close eye on what's happening in St. Louis, starting to just understand the extent of the devastation in St. Louis. That just gives you part of the idea of just how badly some areas were devastated around the St. Louis area and again, the airport is closed indefinitely in St. Louis, still running on backup generators at this point. The very latest for you in just two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well getting close to the bottom of the hour, and keeping an eye on what's happening in St. Louis, in particular, at the airport, which is closed indefinitely right now because of those strong storms and tornados that whipped through the area.

Take a listen now, a quick listen, to one of the airport officials, giving us an update about what happened last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RHONDA HAMM-NIEBRUEGGE, AIRPORT DIRECTOR: Well, I think the response was great. All of the team that time of night, obviously, wasn't out here, so we were all out here within a handful of minutes including the county, including the support staff from the city of St. Louis as well. So all the stuff kicked in. The generators kicked on. You know, all the employees knew what to do and the responses were there. And that's what you want to see, you want to hope that you're prepared and that everything kicks in. The damage is here and it's done and so we have to move forward and go from there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does it feel sitting here and looking at this right now?

HAMM-NIEBRUEGGE: Sad. Really sad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Yes, that's the word this morning. Sad. You can't help but feel that way when you see some of these pictures and some of the ones we've seen this morning as well of people walking through debris that used to be their homes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, folks our hearts are going out to our friends in St. Louis right now. They are dealing with this devastation. A powerful line of storms and tornadoes whipping through the area last evening. We are just starting to get the daylight pictures over the past several hours giving us an idea of how devastated the area was and right now, the St. Louis Airport is closed indefinitely because of damage there.

I'll be back with you at the top of the hour with the very latest here on what's happening in St. Louis. But right now, I want to hand it over to "YOUR BOTTOM LINE." Stay with us.